


The Case of the Friendly 09er

by SickSadWorldLady



Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Episode: s01e21 A Trip to the Dentist, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 14:12:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3137306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SickSadWorldLady/pseuds/SickSadWorldLady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She relaxed a little in her seat. He hadn’t made a big deal of her mom not being there or lorded over her with his fancy car and gigantic house. Instead he’d offered them up to her like she was one of his own. Which she most definitely wasn't. He was some bizarre kind of 09er this one."</p><p>Veronica remembers a moment in her friendship with one of the 09ers during her quest for the truth in 1.21 A Trip to the Dentist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Case of the Friendly 09er

**Author's Note:**

> This is a submission for January's Veronica Mars Fic Prompts, Option 7d: "A long time ago, we used to be friends" - write a story focusing on Veronica 1.0 interacting with an 09er who is not Lilly, Logan or Duncan. 
> 
> I rewatched A Trip to the Dentist and thought it was interesting how nice and willing to spill Luke was, despite his allegiances, and I found him to be the same in You Think You Know Somebody, although Veronica was certainly brasher with him then. He really is kind of a fascinating 09er to me and maybe he'll come back (probably from jail) in a book.

She stops just outside the double metal doors, surveying the graveyard of standard-issue picnic tables scattered across the Neptune High campus. A sea of students populate the landscape who, at best are indifferent or even scared of her, and at worst outright cruel. Not an ideal situation for sleuthing, but it’s the only thing she’s got to work with right now. So she goes on the offensive, it’s how you survive in Neptune. And in high school. For her it's the only way really.

 

Her next victim sits before her, unaware of the predator assessing him from afar. He’s easy prey, so easy she almost doesn’t want to attack. Almost. While they’d never really been friends, per say, he was about the only 09er male who had never treated her as a cheap toy to cure a day’s boredom. Granted he’d never stuck up for her exactly either, which was equally detestable in some ways, but he’d been there for her once upon a time and she sees in him the inability to do what she so badly wishes hadn’t been done.

 

Still, she needs answers and he has some of them, so pounce she does.

  
  


\--

 

_“Hey, you need a ride?” A pre-pubescent voice called from the front door of Neptune Junior High. Behind it a gangly thirteen year-old boy with two-toned hair waved, smiling at her to reveal a shiny set of braces._

_“I’m ok, my mom should be here soon,” Veronica answered back somewhat timidly. Whether this was true or not she wasn’t sure, but she was going to have faith for the moment it was. It was the only way to survive. Pretend everything was ok. Plus, she really didn’t want the only 09er remaining to think she’d been abandoned. As if was she wasn’t already treading water in the rich end of Neptune’s class pool._

_“It’s no biggie, I promise. My babysitter can drop you off, or if no one’s back yet you can hang out at my place. We’ve got about a thousand channels. And candy.” The boy laughed and raised one eyebrow up. In contrast to the cocky or flirtatious smiles of his friends, his was saturated in pure congeniality. “DK says you have a sweet tooth.”_

_Veronica looked around at the emptying middle school. Her other friends were long gone, picked up by nannies and Stepford mothers who wouldn’t dare let their sons or daughters linger amongst the proletariat a second longer than necessary. Alone she remained, just hoping her mom would remember today, desperate not to have to trudge back into the school office and call the police station to let her dad know she needed a ride. Again._

_“I should call my house,” she relented, finally giving up on her mother. “Just in case.”_

_“Sure! We have a car phone, you know, in case my dad needs to get an ‘important’ call. He never does though.” The boy grinned again, winking at her. “It’s all for show.”_

_Cautiously stepping into the Beemer, Veronica slid her pink backpack onto her lap and stared out the window at the beach-soaked landscape, wishing she could disappear into the ocean._

_“Here,” he handed her the phone attached to the inside of the car, sleek and weird resting in the middle of the two front seats. It was just like the one in her house, only in a car. Her dad’s car didn’t even have air conditioning._

_Three rings. Four Rings. Five Rings._

_“Maybe I should just turn back and wait for her at the school. I’m sure she just got held up.” Veronica blushed._

_“We can try your house first if you want, in case she went back after not seeing you?”_

_“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” she replied to no one in particular, certainly not to the boy in the seat in front of her wearing the Padres t-shirt. The team had probably given it to him themselves in the locker room after a game. After all, his dad was a key player in building them a sleek new home that would open in a few years. Her dad was just a regular old fan of the key players. “Green Circle Terrace.”_

_“I know,” he smiled back at her, revealing his metal-clad teeth again. “I was there for your birthday last year.”_

_“Oh, right.” Despite his friendship with Logan and Duncan, Veronica would hardly call she and him friends. He was an 09er and a jock. The rest of that crew could barely meet her eyes, fearful of catching poor, but he didn’t seem so bad right now._

_“So the rumor going around is that Logan Echolls is dating Lilly Kane,” he turned around in his seat to face her, smirking. “Can you confirm Veronica Mars? You are her best friend and the sheriff’s daughter, I suspect any lunchtime mystery should be referred to you.”_

_Veronica reddened a little more but giggled. “I can neither confirm nor deny such rumors.”_

_“How about those who say the youngest Kane is secretly harboring a crush on Neptune’s Nancy Drew?”_

_“Who says it’s a secret?” She tried her best to play coy, pushing the crimson back below the surface, feeling more emboldened as the car drove on._

_“Aha! I knew it!” He fist-pumped emphatically in the front seat ahead of her. “Dick owes me $10!”_

_“But who called me Nancy Drew?” She demanded jokingly, changing course from her now revealed secret._

_“The Hardy Boys. They say you’re always snooping around.”_

_“Does that make you Biff?”_

_“Tony obviously. Dick’s clearly Biff. Besides Tony’s a standout second baseman, sound familiar?”_

_“When you’re right, you’re right.” She relaxed a little in her seat. He hadn’t made a big deal of her mom not being there or lorded over her with his fancy car and gigantic house. Instead he’d offered them up to her like she was one of his own. Which she most definitely wasn't. He was some bizarre kind of 09er this one._

_The car pulled up to the Mars’ little one story cottage house, tan stucco exterior mostly hidden by shrubbery, covering a fading a paint job. Suddenly her spirit vanished once more. She shifted uncomfortably against the leather seat at the sight of the lower middle class symbol before them._

_“Hold on here for one second,” his babysitter turned to her as Veronica’s eyes struggled again to meet anything but the black plush carpet of the car’s interior. “I’ll ring the bell and see if anyone’s inside.”_

_“Thanks,” she smiled weakly, debating whether she’d rather have her mom be inside so she could finally be home, or whether the prospect of her mom being at the door further solidified what she, and probably all of them already knew, her mother had forgotten her plain and simple._

_The babysitter, more likely an au pair in her mid 20s, came gliding back down to the street. “Alright your mom’s home. Make sure you’ve got everything.”_

_Gathering her backpack and light spring jacket Veronica’s second-worst fears were confirmed as her mom stumbled slightly down the porch and out to the street. “Thanks so much for the ride,” she quickly got out, hoping to intercept before her mom made it to the car._

_Too late. She’d just taken a step outside when her mom was there, right at the front passenger side window, smiling at the boy and stammering on about how she’d been held up at the supermarket and had just gotten the groceries away when they showed up. Veronica would bet more than those $10 there weren’t any groceries, put away or otherwise, inside that house, but she wasn’t about to say that aloud in the street._

_Instead, she looked down at her feet, pushing her right toe up and creating an axis for her ankle to spin. Round and round it went as her mom tried to further explain away her absence in the pick-up circle._

_“Anyways,” she cleared her throat lightly, hoping to cut her mom off before she embarrassed herself and Veronica further. Her pale face was already so red she could feel the warmth spreading through her body. “Thanks again Tony. I mean Luke.”_

_“Anytime Veronica! Next time we’ll go straight for the candy. Maybe you can solve the case of where it all went.”_

_With that grin the car drove off and Veronica headed inside, grateful to the boy who saved her from another afternoon doing homework on the school steps._

\--

 

Eyes locked, she approaches him from behind, her confidence having grown ten-fold from that day in the car. Still, he looks the same, albeit now with straight teeth and a slightly larger build. Same genuine smile though. Approachable despite the zip code and big-wig dad. It isn’t the first time they’ve talked this year, but the first since the introduction of Veronica 2.5, a beta-version complete with all the snark the public has come to love from the 2.0 model, but with a little softer edge--one that makes out with Logan Echolls, a lot apparently, which brings her to why she’s here...

 

“Remember when I saved you from drug dealers and I said I may call upon you for a favor some day?”

 

“You didn’t say that.” In front of her he laughs warmly, just like that boy who called her Nancy Drew and offered to share his candy stash, void of judgements or questions about the lowly sheriff’s daughter whose mom had forgotten her again.

 

“It was implied.”

 

“Ok what can I do you for?”

  
“Nice,” she adds a sincere smile of her own to the mix. At least there’s one 09er out there who will help her today. 


End file.
